Jason Little’s brilliant Borb comic strips are now available for you to purchase in print – all 90-odd pages of it – in three long and narrow minicomics. We also have Jason’s classic Jack’s Luck Runs Out and Zero Zero 23, containing his memorable reworking of the...
Read moreAlternative Comics books are on sale from now until SPX in mid-September at 20% off, in celebration of their 20th anniversary. Discounted price will appear once you add the book to your cart. Get on it now at: https://wowcool.com/Alternative-Comics/. The sale includes the latest books and...
Read moreStylish, violent, and sordid — but also thoughtful and, occasionally, hopeful — Trevor Alixopulos has crafted two powerful books about war, politics, and relationships that will draw you in and force you to take a hard, long look at the realities of our modern world. In Mine...
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Sam Henderson started publishing the Magic Whistle series 20 years ago, and today sees the release of the 24th issue. Yes, number 13 is the 24th one. There were 10 issues in the self published volume 1 (largely collected in Humor Can be Funny and The Magic Whistle Blows) Volume 2 has had 13...
Read morePassage is so much more than a coming-of-age story; it is a heartfelt ode to growing up with parents filled with the best of intentions and embarrassing ways of acting them out. Using her brother’s unique ceremony celebrating his entrance to manhood as a defining example of their...
Read moreWe at Sparkplug are continuing our busy festival schedule and would love to see you at this awesome event we’re attending! This weekend, August 31st and September 1st, is the San Francisco Zine Fest. Emily Nilsson will be tabling with new and old books, including the brand...
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The great Wayne White did his thing recently at TEDxKC. You can stream the whole event online. Wayne closes the show starting after this introduction at 03:27:22 or so. Learn more about Wayne White on this site here.
Read moreHi everyone! Come see us this weekend at The Projects, Portland’s free festival celebrating experimental comics and narrative art forms. There will be four days of workshops, exhibitions, panels, performances, and more at various locations all over the city. On Sunday, the 25th, we will be...
Read moreHave you been reading Elijah Brubaker’s thrilling biography of Wilhelm Reich, the controversial psychoanalyst, sex researcher, and protege of Freud? Have you been anxiously awaiting the next installment of Brubaker’s stark and brilliant take on this strange and tragic life story?...
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Hey, folks, come dig this. The beloved Mothers News – the Paper of Record from Providence, Rhode Island – has made its archives available for free online at Archive.org. Every issue of the RI broadsheet is avaialble for download in whatever appropriate format you like. Included are...
Read moreWe are super excited to announce that we have copies of Wuvable Oaf #0-4 back in the store! If you haven’t picked up this series yet, you no longer have any excuses — you simply must read it. Really, it has something for everyone: Bears. Drama. Kitties! (Lots of kitties.) Metal...
Read moreYeah, It Is! is a beautiful little book about Mack, a teenage girl. It takes a quiet look at growing up and some of the trials and experiences that come along with it: missing friends who’ve moved away, feeling irritated with the ones who’ve stayed behind, hanging out at cafes and...
Read moreWe have some awesome new additions to the store today! First up, we have issue #3 of William Cardini’s incredibly strange and visually arresting Vortex. In this issue, the Miizzzard is lost in the Vortex dreamworld, his fate unknown. What will become of him? Read it to find out! In this...
Read moreAre you going to be in Minneapolis this Sunday? Come see us at Autoptic! It is a free, one-day festival celebrating independent culture that features comics, zines, art, and music. Special guests include Jaime Hernandez, Marc Bell, Jim Rugg, Lilli Carre, John Porcellino, Genevieve Castree...
Read moreAverage and boring humans can talk about double nickels, ballot results and mersh projects until the spiel comes home… but I want to know this..
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A school bus is forced off a cliff by a vehicle in pursuit of a legendary woodland giant. Secrets are revealed when it’s young passenger, a boy known for his inability to speak, commands the giant to in an unknown language. Exposed as link between our world and another, the boy must choose...
Read moreDo you love tales of the macabre and Gothic fiction? Do you get a thrill from being subtly horrified, eerily unsettled? Do you like amazing black-and-white art, anthologies, and juxtapositions of the work of talented modern artists and classic authors? You do? THEN YOU NEED TO READ ORCHID THIS...
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But wait! There’s more! Enjoy this gallery of recent sketches by Simon Gane. Bonus sketch: Juliet from Simon’s graphic novel Paris with Andi Watson – featuring Simon’s interpretation of Picasso’s 1946 painting La Joie de Vivre. Simon has a new book on the way with a...
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UPDATE – January, 2023 Al Columbia is now active on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/psycopoprecords/ Orange Sunshine House and other sites are no longer available but you may be able to find their traces on Archive.org. Al Columbia on Wow Cool
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As we do nearly every time Adam Curtis opens his mouth, as it were, we are posting a little something about his latest post over on his BBC blog. This one’s a real hoot and a serious time commitment. It deals with the innate idiocy of having a state-funded domestic counterintelligence...
Read more“…the Viewotron [is] a metaphor for the creative process. We don’t know where ideas come from. They just appear like blueprints out of the ether of our brains. An artist’s job is to look at the blueprints and build the machine. It doesn’t matter if you don’t...
Read moreAre you ready for this year’s Portland Zine Symposium? We are! Come see us this weekend, August 10th and 11th! We’ll be tabling with a bunch of awesome books, both new and old. PZS is a free conference and zine social exploring facets of independent publishing and DIY culture. Now in...
Read moreToday’s featured review is Jade, Volume One, by local artist and writer Fiona Avocado. Its premise is simple, and in fact it could be summed up in a sentence: a young woman skips out on work for the day and goes to the beach with her dog. This easy synopsis, though, belies the depth of
Read moreHey everyone! We’re excited to announce a new feature here on our blog called “Sparkplug Highlights,” in which we’ll choose a book from our store a couple of times a week and share a little bit about why we think it’s so great. After you’ve read the selection...
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